Did Danny Casolaro Know Too Much? | The Octopus Murders

dve Casto was murdered by the government and this episode's all about how yeah that might be true I didn't know you were starting um caught me off guard much like his as salance caught him off guard yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah uh yeah it's a wild conspiracy episode so pretty fun if you like conspiracy episodes you like this one uh J and also if you like comedy podcasts you like this cuz that's what this is this episode is mostly laughter and dishonoring the dead sorry about that um I guess you got

any shows coming up yeah speaking of dishonoring the dead I'm doing a funeral how Wild would that be hey guys now I am uh I actually I get spring break off and so uh the next Show's coming up um are a April 5th this is actually fun in in San Angelo Texas which is like the the bad part of Texas part that sucks um and if you live out there you know you know what I'm talking about uh stt Angelo Texas there's a there's a family out there that is raising money to adopt a child and so they're putting

on a comedy show as a fundraiser so I get to be part of that on April 5th and then on April 7th I am doing three count them three Sunday services for uh for a church in Bloomington Indiana so please come hang out we'd love to see that and then also uh on April 13th I am in uh Kors light Idaho Coral however you pronounce that place Idaho cordelane Idaho uh on April 13th so any of those shows I'd love to see you at please don't kill me hey welcome back to Kansas City how you doing good thanks for

having me was your flight dude no I was actually annoyed the guy at the rental C thing like I was just like all right yeah I've got a reservation here we go yeah and he's like oh you in town for for business and I was like uhhuh you going to get some barbecue I was like just give me the just let me get out of here yeah yeah ask you all the small talk tell them about your uh Uber yeah my Uber this one now listen I was disrespecting him at first because he missed three turns and so my arrival time

went from it was you know it's I live 56 minutes from LAX yeah and uh you know if you're looking at a map it's it's toward the ocean it's 56 minutes out the ocean [Laughter] so anyway so he picks me up uh he makes he misses three exits on his like cuz I can see his GPS yeah and so 15 minutes on the ride our arrival time now says 56 minutes from and I was like okay um and then so I text you about it I was like this guy's missed three turns I was like what the heck and then I'm not joking 5 minut

es after that the arrival time said 25 minutes and I was like hold on that's incredible I was like this guy I didn't I wasn't familiar yeah with his game that's pretty impressive you can't tell anyone that route now you have to hold that yeah he told me the route Yeah well yeah you you experienced it he couldn't not tell you no one else can know about this portal we went this like weird it was a car wash we drove through and then on the other side uh there was like I fell asleep for a bit it was

a short ride short long time yeah anyway I had to shave again at the end yeah it was I woke up short I don't know what happened I don't know what happened at Toyota Sienna but we made it to LAX this morning yeah what was wild is we made it and next thing I knew we were in the cargo hold of the airplane in his car like I told you I knew the way I told you I KN are we supposed to be here right now yeah that's the wrong question yeah that's not a question you want the answer to I got the middle se

at I overplayed my hand this time cuz I had booked an aisle seat is in an exit row which is a main cabin seat with the POR and I usually fly you know I usually fly you know in front of the pores and um and so I was like I'll get upgraded I get upgraded I did get upgraded to Delta Comfort plus yeah uh but the only seat they upgraded me to was a middle seat so I overplayed my hand cuz I was like surely I'll get upgraded surely and I did but not enough not enough not yeah yeah and then the the guy

in the window understood how it works I get that armrest this guy was like I get both armrests I said no no you have the aisle I get both armrests and he was like really mad about that we fought dad did you who won well the flight attendant I think when you depends on which phase of the sky flight turns out he was an Air Marshall turns out the guy next to me he won when he pulled out his gun I was like wa dude you're not supposed to have that we do an episode why why are you doing to me what the

Enterprise agent did why are you like how was your flight tell us about your Uber can I can we just freaking all right have you ever heard an episode have you ever heard of Danny calaro Danny calaro yeah I don't know he sounds like he owns like a freaking like car shop you know yeah well he's dead so so I hope you feel sounds like he owned a car shop I'll find you got to find his private diary today I skimmed this much money off the top of casin today I stole a bunch of money you're telling me

if there was a serial killer who killed 31 people and we put Baskin Robins name on it that's not that's not good for their brand all public 31 Flavors oh no things I learned last night now Danny calaro uh he's this is going to be a big story um I'll tell you we can take a look at him first here's Danny um Danny looks like Steve's brother um he looks like my brother-in-law here's another shot of him uh here's another shot of your brother-in-law you don't he looks like my father-in-law straight up

actually you if you just uh him once but I can see it add a couple years to him here's another picture of him and then here's that same picture of him with his son not cut out of the picture um wait wait wait is the last one his son's cut out is that what you're saying yeah this is the new the news was like oh we can't have his son in there so we got to cut him out of that no they didn't that's not the same picture that's the same picture that's the same picture are you are you joking it's it's

similar enough to be called the same okay that's cuz it's the same person so you're saying these two pictures of the same person are the same picture because they're similar enough you understand how that work like you that's like you say like this episode's the same as everyone cuz our voices are the same all right so dny cast speaking of speaking of yeah this we got some YouTube comments from multiple people now cuz we we've told you how the prisoners listen to us um not on the podcast becaus

e when we go to the prison walls and we shout we give them instructions and we say here's what's going on anyway no the prisoners listen to us because they got no nothing else to do and um apparently a lot of them don't know which one like because when you download our episodes you can see both of us in the thumbnail but apparently they didn't know which is which that Tim's the fat [Music] one you know what I'm saying it is insane to me and and we've known each other for 10 years we've known our

selves for longer I've known myself for quite a bit for 30 um but we we it's crazy to me that you could see those pictures and hear our voices and mix them up and then go yeah that's what the that the small squeaky looking one Probably sounds like a grown man and then that clear man of a man just broad shouldered strong jaw man strong jaw that guy he probably he probably sounds like uh he probably sounds like Mickey Mouse got his consoles taken [Music] out you hear it oh boy no no no that's him

with oh boy no just say oh boy like you're such a simple bit golly all right Danny we got to get into this okay okay okay okay D Danny calaro was a journalist kind of journalist is a strong term for him he was a writer he was a poet and like a novelist that's what he wanted to do sure but he he wasn't making it doing that so he got a deal like as a tech journalist writing in technology um and he stumbled upon something once uh that led him down a rabbit hole that changed his life forever okay um

did it end his life alleged I don't know let's get there allegedly here we can we'll we'll fast forward to the end of the story real quick and then go backwards I think that's a better way to do this you want to wear one of those hats or all three of them no no no put the logo all right you want one they AR going to fit my head I think they will actually these are pretty big hats okay like this is huge on my head it is pretty big on your OD job hats um okay so what happened um okay so Danny doe

s it fit no Danny uh he on August 10th we do corporate podcasts if you are a company and you want us to to make content for what is happening this episode okay D do your P I'm saying this is from one of the podcasts we produce I was trying to set it up so we could do like a hey our media set it up again media hey cool hat what's that hat for I'm trying to bring it up naturally cool hat so thanks for bringing it up uh we do corporate podcasts for companies for people who want to make content prof

essional podcast and uh people who are like man I I know that content's important but I don't know what to do about it you know what should and so if you are a company or you know a company or you would like us to make content for you uh you can reach out yeah we can produce they made the hats though this wasn't our idea I love the hats I actually told them not to I actually really like them I said don't make the hats you never and I thre them I said if you make the hats [Laughter] um okay anywa

y so Danny on August August 10th 1991 Danny was found dead in a hotel bathtub that's a rough transition there was a no good wayag there was no good way to do that transition no d power the network a corporate podcast brought to you by Danny was found dead in the bathroom in a hotel bathroom on August 8th 10 August 10th 1980 1991 1991 yeah um so okay so content warning um Danny was Danny was in the Sheron hotel in Martinsburg West Virginia um he found dead in the hotel bathroom uh by one of the t

he uh cleaners bathtub full bloody bathtub water um with a bag like looking like it was out in his head at one point and 10 to 12 gashes in his wrists um and blood all over the walls spoted all over the walls there's a bloody towel like an attempt is to make it look like a suicide I don't know if I would say or if it's like now we we we murdered this guy well here we I'll continue setting the scene you keep laughing at really bad stuff what we murder this guy um so quit doing that sorry I just s

o D yeah so in in that room there was a bunch of bloody towels underneath the sink um and then in the uh the like hotel room there was a note and the note was interesting me see if I can pull this up real quick this is the one thing that I forgot to pull up before we started sure the note said be sure to drink your oval tea because that's how their marketing is going right now is they're like what gets news coverage murders what started murdering now hold on though if I if I'm making content for

your company you want branding help you want marketing help you want some Buzz around your company murder someone dude leave a note behind that said this person got murdered by Cheetos flaming hot all right Fredo L to rest Fredo L to rest all right like freaking start killing me wow okay Home Depot you can do it we can kill that's the craziest thing you've ever said out loud pretty good idea pretty good idea so the notes said that's up there with lobster hands I'll tell you that the notes said

oh boy oh man we're in for a long one today folks buckle up for real you're probably driving right now buckle up Buckle it up or else we're going to turn your wreck into an ad so the note read to my loved ones please forgive me most especially my son and yeah they were trying to make it look like a suicide uh and be understanding God will let me in uh so okay and then some of his personal effects were were left in that room um and it it was very it was ruled this was a suicide um his family was

notified and all that it was ruled that by like the coroner by the police yeah yeah corner I'm not going to say police I'll say yeah sorry I I accidentally ruined stories all the time uh so yes the police show up they rule it a I keep doing to you what my wife does when I tell good stories I'll be launched into a good one yeah I'm like oh my gosh so one time this girl in our small group was like I've got this mace cuz I don't feel safe on campus and I like look across the room she goes he maed h

is best friend I was getting there I was I was trying to I was going to go there I was going to get to that part of the story yeah they got married after Reagan stop it let me tell a story finish so uh they rule it a suicide mhm two days later they contact the family and the family says it's weird you're just now contacting us it's been two days and they said okay they're like we've been trying to reach you the cyber attacks there was the towers are down you know what actually we were talking ab

out this today actually we have a lot no we were talking about this today can you and I can we can we start a hacking group and name it solar flare and say first of all that's super cool solar flare media shoot that's kind of cool sfm that's kind of cool actually and then and then we take down the grid and we take a responsibility and we say it was the solar flare yeah and everyone's like oh it's just a solar flare and then we just under the radar baby under the radar is our our is one of the um

brella yeah yeah and that's where we do things under the radar um This Is Us in jail we're not in jail we're being investigated yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah uh can you tell me what this LLC it's under the radar comma LLC that's where we do all of our under the radar activities like what anything that needs to be under the radar um well we're right now it feels like you might no it seems also I can tell for sure that Tim filled out this paperwork cuz it says LLC on it he refuses to just not put that

on stuff I'm really sorry yeah this is an es under the radar LLC the radar he doesn't have to put the LLC on there you think LLC Corp has been taken can we be LLC can you tell a story please D so D's says okay well what did the autopsy say and they like oh we we didn't do one and they're like oh can we can we can we do one of those no and they're like oh yeah here's the thing though the body's been emomed and they're like that's strange because in this state of okay West Virginia the family has

to approve any EMB bombings before they can happen and like yeah but there's been a lot of lawsuits lately bomed we were going to get him taxor what don't you don't want that to happen when you die is that even Poss is that legal I mean under the radar right tax Derby byle wait what is it [Laughter] available yeah my email is Paul the actorx dur my uncle.com are you buying that for real yeah I will yeah you got to put it in bio that's our new linoln bio tax hey if you want to join us on patreon

you can go to Taxidermy uncle.com all right you guys want to start over this episode is wild this episode is wild okay so Danny Danny's Family they're like hold on I didn't think that was legal to do yeah they they're like and so hey thanks for checking out our show if if you like it and you want to support be a part of what we're doing here you can do that by becoming a patron uh what happens there is you get to be in the community uh we have a Discord with our hosts and producers we have a lot

of fun we're Super Active in there every day you get access to adree content a week before everybody else and we have a zoom every month with our patrons uh we hang out we eat pizza we get to know you a little bit better uh it's a blast and there's a ton of other uh different benefits like merch discounts uh birthday messages things like that that are super cool uh if you want to be in that uh you can just text till to 66866 uh and that'll get you right in there um if not we're just super glad

that you're here uh and thanks for watching our show they start kind of pursuing this and they say okay well let's do an autopsy even though like you've already done the embalming like let's let's see what conclusions we can make there um the autopsy goes through ends up that they conclude the same thing but a lot of the paramedics that we're on scene are voicing some concerns like hey that's not what happened yeah one of the things that they said that was very interesting is one there was no um

there's a term for this that I don't remember basically this is what I've learned from documentaries is you tell the police nothing but you tell the paramedics everything that's very true that's what's been said what the paramedics said is and and there's a term for this I don't know what the term is but like basically hesitation marks and so they said like if it's suicide usually there's evidence that they like went for it and they like kind of couldn't do it right away like this is too clean

like there's not a sign of they were struggling to to mentally do this sure they also said and this is going to be tough for you um they were too deep there was 11 to 16 what was 10 to 12 jiren I know you're listening right now while you're driving H this is future Jen this is for you just really hang on buddy hold on Buddy um yeah they went down and he actually cut tendons um why are you doing this man deep to the Bone um far enough to where one of his hands at one point he would not have been

able to grip because he cut the tendon that would would have gripped and so they said it would have been literally impossible for him to go to the and start doing the arm oh interesting okay okay okay okay why all this that's why this is relevant okay that makes so either that was the last cut which like it doesn't seem like it yeah or that was another interesting thing is the tips of his fingers were cut off um a you can't do that yourself which is very odd yeah and what the police say is that

hard enough to cut your own fingernails dude like you ever cut your your left hand you know what I'm saying like it's really difficult to do the uh what the police what the police said is that he used a razor blade and because he was using a razor blade that grip is what made him cut him off but again this is not yeah this is kind of an insane like huh yeah um so it's anyways this is graphic but it was a very graphic scene um and the police are sticking to their story that it was suicide but the

re's some people right right off the bat that are throwing some red flags the cleaners and the maintenance guy who were the first to find the body said that there was the and this is I've heard multiple people say that this is an expert opinion which seems a little jacked up to call it that but they said it looked like that towel was thrown on the floor and they used their foot to wipe up the blood cleaner yeah oh yeah I can tell from the swirl that that was that was with the foot that was a foo

t that's how I always get the new guy hey get down there and scrub like mean it all right this is the Sheridan not a super eight um and then they also talked about the splatters on the walls yeah how those cuts like it doesn't make sense that there would be splatters on the walls with those cuts and the bag is a weird touch like why would you cover your head in a bag go for it yeah doing yeah so there's a lot of mysteries also the police just drained the bathtub when they got there which seems l

ike that was probably evidence there they should have at least took a sample of that they literally wased the evidence down the train if there was any so okay there's a lot of red flags in this whole right um this specific this specific point in the story we're not a true crime podcast I'm interested why we're doing all of this so far yeah you'll get it okay um and so the uh oh and I guess the last important thing there was an empty bottle of wine and a and a single beer in the room too and some

pills okay bottle of wine yeah yeah it was empty here's the here's the thing though this trip uh was a significant trip because of the reason why he was in um West Virginia West Martinsburg West Virginia so we need to take it back a couple years in the story okay to look through Danny and how he got here sure so Danny was a poet and a and a writer as I said um but he did uh technology news columns to like pay the bills okay and this is throughout the ' 80s um and so he got a job from one of the

columns that he wrote for to investigate um this lawsuit that was open um for a company called inslaw against the de Department of Justice okay inslaw was founded by here let me pull up a pull up a picture of them sorry I got to pop over insw was like a a it was a Ma and Pa operation that was uh a husband and wife that sure usually Ma and Pa are they secured a deal with the Department of Justice um this is his wife or Bill Hamilton and his wife whose name is not on Bill Hamilton looks like he s

hould be portrayed in a movie by the uh you watch only murders in the building yeah the guy who has the cats yeah yeah I can see that yeah uh so Bill and bill and his wife or me if you're open to Casting any casting directors are watching this I'm just so thirsty for work I also produce a podcast for you also yeah because content's important content is king um yeah I can't find Bill Hamilton's wife name okay anywhere but Bill and his wife started this company insw and what insa did is they creat

ed technology products for lawyers and they okay developed a software called promise that they got a deal uh with the Department of Justice for and what promise was was it was a database for prosecutors the Department of Justice thought this is really cool and this is the uh late 70s kind of datab um it's the sort of thing that can track all your data it's like an Excel is spreadsheet kind of it but it's so this was at the time where everything was paper it was like computers were just popping o

nto the scene so it was taking all your all your file if you had ever done anything wrong it would take your file and it would make it in this Global database that all the prosecutors Across the Nation could access and see here's everything you've ever done before file yeah where before it was like oh you got to call and access the library to get the file it was disconnected disconnected I get my file currently I don't know have you ever broke the law uh you have a file now I have a Fifth Amendm

ent right to not answer that question I have a Second Amendment right not I have a Second Amendment right to not answer that question this gag is from an episode that didn't get released we've done it a lot I forgot wow we need that episode didn't come out it's to our patreon supporters they have it yeah yeah maybe we should release that in our newsletter like if you sign up to the newsletter they can get it oh maybe that's a good call that's a good idea it's can we just say what it's about I th

ink we had before I don't know if we have I think it's almost better if we don't I think I I like the like the Intrigue of it where do you get it and then you hear it and you're like oh that's why did we put an intro in there explaining why it never came out I don't know we ever did that no because we never released it that's fine anyways um so so this software before this software you only had a file if you did something wrong okay after this software everybody could have a file no matter what

because it was just more opportunity to have like a global database so you probably have a file now even if you didn't do anything wrong but this connected it all the government loved this idea yeah so much that allegedly they took this software so they took this deal with them and this turned them into like a real company so like they went from Ma and Pa to Ma and Pa and this guy in the background and then uh to P in color PT in color with P in color okay with a a logo in a cool light uhuh um s

o like it made them a real company and they actually like they were able to hire up a whole team and develop the software and manage the software for them and do installations around the country and it was a big government contract that made them millionaires it was kind of like they struck gold you know it was a very exciting time for them they achieved The American Dream well um a few years into uh running this inslaw gets a letter from the Department of Justice in Canada and Department of Jus

tice in Canada says Hey we've been installing your software and we ran into this issue can you help us sort this out and they're like wait why are you installing our software yeah and they were like from us yeah they were like when did this happen yeah and oh I see how this s yeah yeah yeah and so they started tugging on some threads and long story short allegedly what happened Danny gave it to him was and they're like we got to kill him allegedly what happens was the Department of Justice took

this software and distributed it to their allies oh without the license with so breaching their contract with insw right so that way their allies could have it and uh insa said hey they got a pay us for that and the Department of Justice was like no we didn't do that no oh they were like we didn't give it to them yeah like no that didn't happen and they're like how did they get it and they're like ah we don't we don't know so they took him to court they suit him Pirate Bay I guess they Li wire i

t had to be lime wire I know the Canadians they don't care about malware so they probably were just like oh what's a virus who cares malware what is that a duck what is that so they took him to court they took him to court and this was this guy in the background that I said was their employee this was actually their attorney and this is significant because he was the Attorney General at one point um this is uh Elliot Richardson and Elliot Richardson's a very significant person um because Elliot

Richardson was the guy who uh during the whole Watergate Affair told Nixon no and stepped down uh it was like no I'm not going to do this yeah he's like I'm not going to be a part of this and he stepped down from his his post so he's got some beef with the United States government yeah um and so he came and he fought the the doj he's like I also hate the United States government there's different kinds of people who hate the government though you know what I'm saying like there's like there's li

ke we hate the government people and they're like building camps out in the middle of the woods yeah and then there's like lawyers who are like yeah I mean we yeah we hate the government let's take him so he he knows who to call and so he makes some calls you really want your CPA you want your accountant to be like a that's true that's I want you to be super like don't don't let me pay taxes I want if I pay too much taxes I want you to go I if you pay this I'm going to step down looking at this

number if you pay that bill I'm gonna get out I'm gonna I'm GNA leave um so he he knew uh Elliott knew the people to call I'm calling his first name ell knew who to call so he could get all the data he needed on the US government good old L and so he goes to they go to court and in this legal battle he is able to produce documents proving that the United States hired a uh a software engineer to install a back door in promise and then hired a third party company who was ins slw's largest competit

or significantly larger than them um and was owned by a guy who was within um not yet but would eventually be within the presidential cabinet um who was the owner of this company and then there's so much like just blatantly you see the gav Nome thing that happened with Panera no like in California a $20 minimum wage is coming through but it doesn't apply to bakeries and cafes because one of Gavin Newsome's biggest donors owns 24 Panera locations not even like owns Panera just own a couple locati

ons and it's like I don't want to do it so they wrote that it's stuff like that where you just go this is so OB I think it is but like that's so insane it's just stuff that you go what do you like yeah that's crazy like they're just like oh we're doing it so yeah similar thing so this company gets promised software hey we like this software I don't want to pay them too much for it I mean to be fair though this is what we all did with Photoshop when we were on staff at a church not exactly not ex

the church bought a license I also have a license on Church Photoshop license yeah no that's not true but they long time yeah well then they got rid of it they were like you have to pay us $1,000 a month yeah yeah so um so they uh uh what they did was they got this third party guy uh which we're going to introduce him in a minute to install a back door on the promise software sure they took the promised software and they gave it to this third party company and they said hey it'd be really cool

if you sold this to like Israel and Canada and oh so that they didn't do it and 80 other countries and so this company sells it to 80 other countries okay and it's all linking back to the United States so now the United States has data on everybody in 80 other countries okay I see what they did um I see what they did and uh uh honestly they're allies smart allies and enemies these are people both within and outside the United States like net um that this company was selling this stuff to okay um

and so meanwhile the guy who developed the pr software is like our software is in 80 countries and we're only managing the license for one of them um that doesn't make sense yeah and so they take him to court and they win like landside Victory good uh $6 million settlement that's not big enough well at time it was 6 million today it' be 16 million still don't think it's big enough um but still government just like okay well so they lose they win this insa wins this case the Department of Justic

e loses this case right $6 million settlement gets handed down couple months later the judge over that case fired the prosecuting attorney or or the defense attorney for the Department of Justice is replace replaces the judge who was fired and is now the judge and they the Department of Justice implies for an appeal and they go back and they appeal and they lose the case what how can that work I mean it's the Department of Justice they decide what's Justice like you can't win against the Departm

ent of Justice are you kid House Always Wins so they they literally took their attorney they said okay you're going to you're going to be the judge now that's so and so they again this uh 81 is when it all like came through that's Bonkers and so insa goes bankrupt yeah and they never see a penny from this they to pay did they pay the $6 million back no they never got paid like it was before the payment ever went through when that that's what I'm saying that's the stuff that would like makes me s

o angry it's infu that's like Pepsi jet yeah well worse well I don't know it's worse it's worse um but like that stuff makes me so irrationally angry yeah I mean this this was kind of like this really was the like Foundation to the NSA is what this whole Scandal was okay um sure is them realizing oh we can like spy on everybody like everybody yeah what are they going to do about it yeah and they're like what are they going to do sue us well the Department of Justice we're going to win that case

even if we lose that case it's our second that's a really funny bit to just anything okay so so you know how fast you're going back there I don't care I was exercising My Second Amendment right yeah I don't think you know what that means I don't think you know what that means they pull their gun on you they're like what did you say I guess I don't know what it means I guess you're right I guess I didn't know can I have my lawyer can I have my you have the right to your lawyer or your mother all

right not the state will provide one for you okay so inlock goes bankrupt the lawyer was his mom that was the joke the whole time yeah the um so goes backr and Dany gets the case um to to write a tech column about it and and it was supposed to be a look at this news isn't this crazy he starts digging into it he calls Bill and he's like hey can you tell me something about it and Bill's like oh I can tell you a lot about it yeah and so Bill and him start talking a lot and Bill introduces him to a

lot of the people that he's gotten to know as a part of like the discovery for this case um and Bill starts to tell him that he's got it on good intelligence from within um uh the CIA that there are that this is bigger than inl that this is bigger than the promise software that there's something much much larger going on here yeah and he's like I think there's a guy by the name of Michael ranoso that you should talk to and Michael will open some doors for you and shed some light onto what's goin

g on this is Michael rones sudo um like a cheese oh it looks like one too and this is this is him crying I think okay and this is him this is him old so he's he's a prisoner yeah so Michael uh Michael is little monk haircut yeah that's a good haircut you should do [Music] [Laughter] it okay that's pretty funny so Michael uh are you gonna are you gonna do the hair implant thing I don't know should I yeah yeah I mean it's kind of funny isn't it it'd be pretty funny if you did pretty funny to do th

at right it'd be like really funny to have a full head of hair what and did not be B anym like that's so funny a really good bit if you had a full head of hair so Michael Sho if you had luscious locks that would make me LOL I can't laugh your hair it's so full oh man okay you got so much follow you man all right I don't know I don't know where you're going right now okay so Michael ranoso ranoso which does sound like a cheese it does Michael ranoso where do we begin with Michael Rano Michael Ran

o is um allegedly the guy who put the back door in to promise okay and so he was an electronics and like computer expert um and he uh uh allegedly worked with the United States government on a handful of project um before in the inslaw affair and uh he begins to kind of talk Danny through this story that it's like ins is just one small piece of what's going on here yeah that there is so he's like he's just exposing what's happened yes it it's weird because he he doesn't expose it all like it's k

ind of like he like gives a lot of hints you know he's like he's like here's an interesting thing and here's another interesting and here's another person you should talk to and so he starts giving Danny all these people you should talk to and all these interesting things um what's crazy is the story he's telling are absolutely insane ideas sounding yeah for example he claims that the Iran Contra Scandal which are you familiar yeah where we gave them a bunch of weapons and then we eventually had

to fight a war with him to stop him from using those he claims that uh the hostages in Iran were uh going to be released but Reagan knew he was going to lose the election if they got released before the election and he had connections with Iran and was able to be like hey hold on to him until the election that's a big old yikes three hours after the vote came through and pass that Reagan won the election the hostages were released is that true yeah that's true and so so it does very much seem m

aybe I am one now so it does very much seem like that might be true me out um and this group The the guy that I was talking about the that owned that company that was selling this was in Reagan's presidential C cabinet and was like a close Confidant of Reagan for many years um and so uh he starts painting this this picture of this group of people who within and without the United States government that are kind of pulling strings on a lot of different things and controlling a lot of different th

ings in a similar in a similar vein there's a group um in uh California in an area called the Cabazon reservation which is a small small native reservation with I think there was like 14 15 uh people living on the reservations very small this uh this guy shows up in this reservation is like hey I can help make you rich if you guys started selling cigarettes here you go 14 people yeah and so all right guys hey gather around I know come on over okay hudle up I can make each and every one of you th

e richest person in [Laughter] town yeah that's wild yeah so he he builds a cigarette shop in town and they start selling cigarettes to who I don't I really genuinely don't know I genuinely I don't know if this is like close to another town that people are coming through I don't like I really don't know I mean okay and so they do that and then um he's like hey it'd be cool if this cigarette shop was also a casino right and so they expand it to a casino um got enough people to run it and in the t

own they start running this casino the one you got one person over at the at the cigarette shop then you've got I don't know a roulette Blackjack you know front desk obviously you got to have a hotel attached to it too or is it just just Casino it's just a casino this is a cigarette Sho Casino cigar Casino your uh dice yeah uh what craps sorry to say that word um yeah it's a little it's just a little like it's like a gas station casino is what I want you to picture I don't want you to picture La

s Vegas I want you to picture a gas station casino Gas Station Casinos make me really sad yeah I think that's the idea it makes me feel really I think that's part of their Mar sad inside yeah so that's what that's part of their marketing look how sad this is don't you want to go to the Venetian instead to do this yeah actually by the venan that does sound pretty dude the Venetian here's what got me to go to the Venetian right I go to a gas station one time I was like there's a casino here why do

I need to go to the Venetian and then I saw someone get murdered at that gas station and the guy doing the murdering was wearing a Venetian t-shirt and I was like you know where this probably doesn't happen is the Venetian the Venetian yeah and he turned to you we all sponsored by by the Venetian go to till go to Taxidermy uncle.com venan for a special discounted rate on your next Las Vegas trip one of their SEO Engineers is going to see that backlink show up on their site and be like what the

heck can can people see the back Lings [Laughter] yeah okay that's good to [Laughter] know I'm killing it today I'm Killing In The Name of Tide Pods what that's how I was I was helping them get their name out there this is a serial killer killed 13 people speaking of 13 that's the number of loads you could do with one thing of Tide Pods jeez okay so this casino is operating right and the security guard for the casino is that's what I'm saying they've got it okay the security guard for the casino

one of the one of the locals one of the natives in the D one of the 12 and so Peter is thinking this casino's not making any money like I see people rolling Dice and I see a lot of money flowing through but we're not making any money so he confronts the guy about it just cast your NS on the other side and long story short he confronts the guy about it doesn't go over well and so he contacts someone on the outside to kind of start to pursue a legal action against him okay a legal action not in a

legal action to pursue legal action against hold on I I think I got lost so the security guard the security guard is watching realizes that what's happening the security guard realizes a lot of money's flowing through this casino but we're not getting paid none of us are getting paid and so he's like I think this guy's skimming money off the top from all of us that we're supposed to be making in this sitation because this is a casino it's not like this guy came in started the casino like you gu

ys want jobs it was like we're starting a casino together and they're all owners together and so the tribe's supposed to be everybody's supposed to be making a lot of money off this and they're not and they're not the casino's making a lot of money they're not making money we should and so he calls a lawyer and the lawyer is like well if you can find evidence that he is skiing money off the top like we need actual evidence you can find evidence then we've got a case and so he's like I'll find yo

u find his private diary oh today I skimmed this much money off the top of this casino today I stole a bunch of money um so similar uh he broke into his office in the middle of the night sure um and he started looking through his documents to see if he could find evidence that he was skimming he found something a lot better um what he found was he found paperwork and evidence of there's no easy way to say this uh that he this guy was manufacturing weapons that the United States government was pa

ying for and shipping to the Contra uh in in this reservation because it was Sovereign land and so there was no uh legislation or anything that had to happen because this was technically not the United States land that was happening on they could just bring this in here and manufacture it and so he found blueprints for weapons he found trade deals he found all the receipts is there like a manufacturing plant then on the reservation I don't know where the manufacturing inside the casino I don't k

now where the manfacturing is happening he has like a basement in the casino I really guy in his shed putting little parsy like okay here's the trigger oh safety's working is gun you say is gun is gun ah yes this is gun he doesn't know a English yeah and so they were were shipping weapons off to the Contra he even found um documentation outlining a meeting between uh that same guy who sold the insula uh uh the promise software to all those different countries um Ronald Reagan um and Contra gener

als and the guy who set up this casino in the desert here in California to to Showcase yeah to Showcase a bunch of these guns and do like firing practice with these guns in the desert uh in California and like paperwork for it um and so this guy called his lawyer and was like hey I think I found something okay um and so he was like cool bring the paperwork up he's in Los Angeles he's like bring the paperwork out to Los Angeles we'll have a meeting and we'll talk through it um and so he tells his

friends he says hey we're going to drive up to Los Angeles and so he's like he's like let's do that in the morning next morning his friends show up to his house and they find him and three of his friends dead in the backyard um and the paperwork's gone uh okay and the casino is doing better than ever no yeah so that was and uh rudo was there for all of this um I don't know what his role was in all of this okay like he was running the computers for the casino or something I don't so now we've go

t five people murdered so far four people murdered yeah four four four people murdered um and so long story short this is this is a big story but long story short rudo starts telling stories of all these experiences he's had following a couple individuals around working for the US government doing very very they killed 25% of that reservation they did yeah yeah um doing very shady things and so Danny starts following this Trail and thinking I've found something insane like I thought I was writin

g a column on a tech lawsuit but this is like something that can potentially rewrite American history um and so he gets insane about this and becomes like full boar conspiracy theorist and he's working on this this um this article for this and he starts to begin to realize that this is bigger than just an article this is not this is a book yeah and so he's like he's like a he starts working on a full book about this and he starts to um to call it the octopus um why because he says there are eigh

t people um that he pins down as being connected to this organization that's kind of calling these shots hey May 18th we're doing another tilling live at Silver Dollar City in Branson Missouri I would really love to see you there tickets are available right now at the at the description of uh wherever you're listening or watching there's a ticket link your ticket gets you entry to the live show but it also gets you access to the park for the entire day so you can come in that morning enjoy the t

heme park all day and then that night we're shutting down the park with our show um so we can't wait to hang out with you please get those fast we'll see you may 18th in Branson Missouri Dean starts digging into this and he starts meeting a lot like this wildcast of characters sure of um people that are connected to this in all sorts of different uh uh different ways and these people are like um uh government contractors basically that are doing different things similar to what rudo did where it

's like they got hired to put a back door in a software or to kill a bunch of people or something like that you know um rakudo coincidentally um he had a best friend uh that he did uh all of these things with early in his career and his best friend was kind of the money guy he ran all the the the money for their operation uh he lived in San Francisco and he was he was killed um and uh his offshore bank account was emptied that allegedly had $150 million in it from a drug trade that he was a part

of sure so yeah so there's Ratatouille guy looked pretty reliable that's the thing that's the thing here's the thing about Rano Rano Rao Rano tells a lot of stories that are very fantastic he doesn't look he doesn't look credible yeah they he does not look credible and the stories seem very incredible um but a lot of them have been corroborate corroborated by either another SCE or by documentation that has been recovered okay um and so it's ranoso as a character is very interesting but Rano doe

s end up going to jail you saw that picture he went to prison um for uh he uh he was working with Danny um trying to help him find all this information sure uh and so he was connected to a few different people in the uh Department of Justice and was allegedly like leaking this information well he found something something he says that they did not want to get out and then uh they would have killed him and they threatened him uh and they said don't don't release this and he was like well and so h

e started going on this trip and while he was on this trip a DEA official pulls him over and arrests him and he goes to prison for 28 years um for producing methamphetamines [Laughter] uh uh I mean put his picture back up which one the first one [Laughter] young I don't want to you know be that [Music] guy but if you were like this guy does myth I would go yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean it's it's believable here's the thing though like some of the stuff is corroborated a lot of his story is cor

roborated um and here's another interesting thing about I guess that's one way to do it if you're going to do some conspiracy crimes use some people who don't seem credible yeah yeah and then when they're like this is what happened you're like okay sure buddy we we're actually putting him in prison right now for drug stuff yeah for drugging um Bond was set as $150 million so so yeah and good news his friend that has $150 million just died it's crazy good news I can't believe that happened what a

coincidence you could either pay for a Super Bowl ad or you can pay me to kill someone you see what I'm saying like the the word would get out there do you're telling me if there was a serial killer who killed 31 people and we put Baskin Robin's name on it that's not that's not good for their Brin all public 31 Flavors oh no you name each murder after one of the rocky road obviously on on the back road of a you know I'm saying swirl is somebody you drowned in a toilet you get what I'm saying ri

ght the scene was covered in neopolitan ice cream vanilla is just shot in the chest that's a very vanilla murder that's a very vanilla murder there's H spce to this word marketing genius is over here no so Rico here's here's the thing about Rico though that we haven't talked about yet power through here's the thing we here's the thing we talking about Rico's Dad yeah uh he had government ties and he was a very wealthy individual okay who um allegedly was a part of all of this um mako's Dad had l

ike disowned Michael and been like this kid is a psychopath sure which I mean if if your son's saying those things about you whether it's true or not you probably need to disown him so like I don't know which way that whether that helps or or hurts his case um uh but uh the the story kind of hits a a climax where Danny uh meets an informant who is going to uh kind of blow the doors open on this whole case and give him enough evidence where he can actually like take this public and like he's got

his Smoking Gun essentially right um and so he's supposed to meet him in Virginia uh and the the kind of week leading up to this event he meets with his brother um at his brother's son's three-year-old birthday um so his nephew's three-year-old birthday it was a easier way to say it yeah it's okay and so he meets up with his son his brother and then after the party he sticks around really late and that party three-year-old birthday party went real late raer just a crazy party so they stayed stay

ed up late talking and he kind of was outlining the whole story line to him his brother is a doctor um like a like a human [Music] doctor yeah um and so it's his dad his dad's a doctor too actually um and so he's kind of talking him through this whole story line of everything he's finding and his brother hearing all this is like it does seem like you've got something here and he tells him he says hey by the way if there's an accident it wasn't an accident um he says I've been getting a lot of ph

one calls lately of death threats um okay and so he's like what year is this now this is the year of his Mur this is weeks before his Mur murder death I don't know Murder um and so he says he says I'm going up to West Virginia I'm going to get my Smoking Gun I've got my last kind of informant this is the last meeting I've got he's been traveling all over the country meeting these informants and interviewing them and stuff like that this is his last one in West Virginia um and so he drives up to

West Virginia he was actually told um by his contact that set this meeting up was like hey don't go alone um and so he asked a friend to go with him but his friend was like I his friend was like because I mean imagine you have to here's how you have to ask right you got to be like hey I'm going to meeting any anything that someone would go I don't want to go alone I'd be like well I don't want you two either but I don't want to go but I don't want to be a part of it either yeah yeah so he can't

get anyone to go with him so he goes alone and so he goes up um he he goes up to West Virginia and leading up the night of do you think if he had had someone with him he wouldn't be murdered uh no I think they'd both be murdered um oh that's bummer uh and so uh through the police had interviewed a bunch of Witnesses in the area and we were able to kind of reconstruct the story of what happened he shows up in town checks into his hotel goes to the Hotel bar sits in the hotel Bar for a few hours g

oes to a local Pizza Hut sits in a local Pizza Hut for 91 it's 91 was the best was freaking bomb in the '90s dude was the best place I don't know if I can say that on the podcast I don't know if they're listening to us sit in Pizza Hut for a few hours and the pizza employees look said it looked like he was waiting for someone that never showed he goes back stood up at Pizza H yeah he goes back to his hotel hangs out in the hotel Bar for a little bit and then at 10: p.m. he turns in goes back up

to his room here's an interesting thing um he goes to his room uh and uh the room next to him uh the lady who was staying in that room had told police that she saw him go back to his room that night and she described a guy that looked nothing like Danny calaro he had uh like Danny had just golden lock super funny hair like so full freaking hilarious hair like look how funny that hair is it's so full it's so not bald and the guy that she described uh he had he had like thin brown hair just so ser

ious unfunny hair not hilarious hair um and uh you you should do the hair plug thing and you should you know like do like a like a skin Rejuvenation thing or something maybe that's really funny also it's really funny to like try to look better yeah I think you should try it's so okay so and this guy was shorter um and thinner than Danny that she described and so it's a guy that does not fit his description at all and she said that she saw him key in and like had a key keyed in went in and uh and

she just assumed that that was the guy staying there um how's he get a key okay uh so that's an an interesting detail a couple other interesting details from that night the 90s are they using key cards at that point I don't know yet I don't know I did that just kind of naturally are they it's kind of like have you seen those videos where it's like the jenzy mom and the jenz daughter and it's like it's like hang up the phone yeah talk on the phone hang up the phone FaceTime and they're like I do

n't know what FaceTime is this is FaceTime back of your I just want some FaceTime with you geez so uh a couple other interesting things about that that night uh Danny um one uh their family was a devout devout Catholics they always were their whole life something that he said in that note is I he said I know God will let me in they don't believe that they don't believe that yeah none of the no one in the family believed that and they're like Danny doesn't believe that either and so they're like

that's a little that that was always very fishy that that was included in that note because we don't think he would say that right second um Danny is basically you um he was terrified of blood um and the idea of going out the way he went out is not a way he would have yeah done it especially like like 12 times his family's like that's very not likely that he could go through with that right um and so there's there's a lot of um fishiness around that and then obviously he's been digging into some

stuff that seems like he's uncovering some stuff and he's intentionally trying to highlight this he has been getting death threats he had been um uh told not to meet this guy alone right was stood up at the meeting and then a guy was seen entering his room that was not him well yeah it's like hey meet me at this place away from your hotel and then I can get into your hotel and then I'll meet you in the hotel room um so what is um what is most likely the story here yeah is uh the rudo storyline

that is painted of this being this big Mastermind group that's in control of everything I don't know if that's the truth I think the story I think it's he found something in here a couple Rogue actors who were doing some sketch things yeah in this big story that was legitimate like that was real this whole thing being connected I don't know if that's real sure um what's very interesting is in that storyline there's a guy um uh something Booth uh who was Alle Legend joh wils John wils Booth worke

d for the CIA um who another reporter after Danny's death she got obsessed with the story and started following the story to try to figure out what happened to Danny and so she met with this guy who uh was one of the guys that Danny had spoken with was someone who Michael Rano had lived with for 2 years Michael hated the guy um and was like I don't recommend anybody live with that guy ever yeah he's like bad guy um this guy um allegedly worked for the government and was kind of like their muscle

um who did stuff that and here there's a interview with him on another court case where he was called as a witness and they're asking all these questions and about his relationship with the United States government and in it he's very irritated and he says they told me this would never happen they told me what I'm doing right now I would never have to do and he says it's he said it's a breach of contract that I'm even here right now talking to you and very so you know why I pulled you over toni

ght this is a breach of contract they told me I never have to talk to you this is my second Amendment right to drive as fast as I want anywhere I want to go I plead the second sir what bang bang [Laughter] bang there's no gun in I'm just play the game just playing the game dude what if when did you get pulled over and you pull out a game on your phone that is just freaking like and you just let it run through your car speakers dead for sure if that cop with the acorn thing like you are dead for

sure in that scenario yikes anyways um this guy uh meets what there's just siren's outside right as we were joking I like that your impulse was to put your hands up and mine was to go I'm G get you I'm G get you no so you start doing that to police officers here around town just go I'mma get you see you around tangle see how that goes for you see how it goes I bet it goes really well I bet they love it I bet they think it's h they think it's super funny I'll say what they don't think is funny at

all uh so I went to Applebees one night this was like a long this back when I ate Applebees right this is back when I looked like I ate an Applebees you know what I'm talking about this is back when I had the appearance of an Applebees goer back when I anyway um you know we're group of us are walking in Applebees there's a police officer group also that walking in I noticed that one of them had their headlight out and I said hey I'm going let you out for the warning tonight but your headlights

out they don't like that joke and I was like that's that's really funny man sorry you should CH I don't know if you don't I don't know if you did you hear me cuz your headlights out I'm going to let you off with a warning you get it cuz you wouldn't do that you wouldn't extend that kindness CU you're not nice to me you get that yeah he arrested you got tased he arrested you on suspicion suspicion of what being suspicious okay so uh uh what was I talking oh this booth guy so Booth gets interviewe

d by that new reporter and Booth in this interview tells her hey um you should be careful what you're looking at this group is a little bit more powerful than you think they are right and he says let me show you something and so he shows her uh clip of the zuder tape you know what that is no that's the JFK tape they called the zuder tape oh um because I think that's the name of the guy who filmed it um the zuder tape zuder zuder zuder it's a tough thing name um so the JFK tape um and in the tape

that he shows her uh the driver turns around and shoots JFK and she says that's not real and she says that's Doctor you doctored that tape and he says no the tape you've seen has been doctored let me show you the tape you've seen and he shows her the tape everybody else has seen and she and he says that's the one you've seen right and she says yeah and he says hold on let me rewind it watch it again pay attention to the tree and in that in the tape that she saw the tree when right when they dro

ve by was cut off so the trunk wasn't there so like they could edit it and take out the driver and replace him with a new driver and he's like that's the Dr tape the one that you've seen and she walks away from that a little confused um and over time she began to realize that tape that uh the tape with the tree missing was also a doctor tape it was not the original tape what he was doing was trying to give me something that I would go out and talk about that would discredit me and so then everyt

hing I said is now discredited and so she says something I had was correct yes and they were trying to throw something in there that would muddy the waters and make it hard to believe anything I said which is what I said earlier where I said if you want to pull off a conspiracy then you've got to get people who are noncredible yeah and so now we should be corrupt bro we so good at this so now the theory is that even ranoso a lot of these which she didn't take that bait she didn't take the bait n

o no yeah she she thinks and some other reporters that have followed her think that there is a web that was spun by guys like Booth rudo some of the other people that were involved in this whole scheme to create this giant fantastic tale to cover up something within that was legitimate and actually happening yeah what it was that was legitimate we don't know but whatever it was looks like it was enough for Danny to get killed over it and those people at that reservation and rona's friend um whet

her it was attached to the government we don't know for sure um it could have been like a mafia situation that was like pretending they were the government sure it could have been the government the inslaw thing happened we know for a fact that that happened because they lost that court case was that connected to all this stuff that ended up in Danny's death we don't know that could have been just like coincidence that that was what led him down that road okay ranoso might not have been attached

to that at all and they might have made it up to say ranoso put that back door in to create that connection to that but it's this massive messy conspiracy of the octopus but something in there is real something inside that is real and Danny found it um what's fun is I don't know if you've heard of the restaurant Chuck-E-Cheeses all right no Christian Hansen um which I said that name like you should know it okay you shouldn't yeah but Chris Hansen Chris Hansen you should know yeah no Christian H

ansen is a reporter was a reporter I call him Christ you go by Christ for short have we mentioned that no okay Christian mentioned what shut up just thought of it okay whatever man Christian Anon is was a reporter is still a reporter um who got interested in this in 2013 um and started really diving into the story got obsessed with it just like dannyan has committed his life to trying to figure this out the last 10ish years maybe um well he and one of his friends just produced a documentary seri

es that's now on Netflix it's a four-part series very good worth a watch goes much more into detail than I just did cuz much less it's called The Gilmore [Music] Girls there's a hidden meeting by The Gilmore Girls and you're not going to believe it once you once you pay close attention like your first time you're watching it you're not going to catch it once you know you can't you can't see it the same it you can't unsee it now uh but this documentary uh goes into more detail on all this names a

ll the people that uh Danny think stter in the the octopus um what's very interesting is Christian put in a bunch of Freedom of Information acts oh to get this stuff revealed well uh they were getting denied uh a lot of them got denied and they wouldn't let him actually see them that doesn't seem like Freedom uh and so freedom of some information act I guess freedom of the information we're okay with you having act a fo um and so he uh in 2013 applied for a foer request for the documents from th

e crime scene of uh Danny's death and he was denied in 2013 um and it's just kind of been through this cycle ever since then um well uh a couple years ago while producing this film he was able to get in touch with the local police department and they were like hey we see that they've been blocking this and this is kind of stupid and they're like we've got them here on the desk these ones that's exactly what happened a framed picture of the body yeah and it says this guy was killed by the Govern

guy died this guy brought to you my Apple piece you want to see our wall of dead guys it's like this one definitely boosted shareholder value this is it's like the BDubs blazing challenge wall just murders that PS committed see that one right [Laughter] there oh my gosh um it's a killer marketing strategy so they were to get the foyer from them and they were they got to actually open up that killer guy.com is that is that taken that's one that you're on a list for buying for sure kill guy.com go

to this website choose a guy choose it's like tender but for murder no no no yeah this oh my gosh this is okay so hours we got to get out of here we got to get out of here so they get the request they open up the documents it's worth watching them open up the documents here's the thing though I watched an interview with the producers of the movie the the Christian and his his filmmaker that filmed at all and they said we had been working on the edit for months to finish this we sent it off to N

etflix literally right after we sent it off to Netflix we get a call with another Foya that went through and so he said hopefully we're going to make an an update soon with what we find from that foyer request okay rudo also um was like whenever the the film comes out let me know and I'll tell you everything else I know okay cuz he's like cuz there's some stuff that can't I'll make some more stuff up you guys are putting it documentary yeah yeah I'll tell you some other stuff you're going to lov

e the stories I tell you're going to love everything I tell you um yeah so uh allegedly they're going to have this this new foyer request that comes through and then everything else that Michael decides to tell them once the film comes out so maybe they're going to make an update soon but Christian hasn't been murdered yet probably will be soon Danny probably was murdered it's what it looks like a bunch of other people got murdered what it was in this case who knows but something for sure someth

ing happened for sure but it was something this is definitely something that's all we can say for sure oh yeah why we hook that at the beginning as a little teaser this was definitely something to you know something to grip their attention to whole listen to the whole episode that's a good idea this is definitely something brought to you by Apple [Laughter] piece all right we can hold on we can't yet because we got a we got to promote something we got to promote our live show on on May 18 when d

oes this come out yeah this one uh hold on let me pull up Infinity B if you're finding this I'm sorry I'll be at Silver doll City on May 18th for till and live tickets are available sorry that I'm moving around like a weird Dead Guy all right fiddle off hey thanks for making it to the end of this episode if you like episodes about dead guys you would love our episode we did about cocaine bear um it's the straight up the the movie pretty exaggerated but the story of how the cocaine ended up in th

e presence of a bear was super fascinating and we did a whole episode about it it is linked in the description of this uh whether you're watching or listening or you know somewhere to click here U thank you so much for for supporting our show and being here for episodes we'll see you again next week for things I learned last night things I learned last night things I learned last night things I learned last [Music] night